3 ms·

I was using Stanford’s definition. https://web.stanford.edu/class/archive/cs/cs103/cs103.1202/lectures/01/Small01.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/class/archive/cs/

• yCombLinks 3y ago
  That's a misc slideshow from a class, not a formal definition.
  • oceansea 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • threeseed 3y ago
      Pretty relevant when you're criticising the work of these teenagers because it doesn't meet your definition of a proof.
    • VerminOctopus1 3y ago
      It was a useful comment and your odd defensive posture is the problem here.
• threeseed 3y ago
  That is not Stanford's official definition. That is the definition from one of their Computer Science lecturers. I can't speak to it's accuracy but I would imagine better sources exist.
• mathteddybear 3y ago
  "A mathematical proof is an argument that demonstrates why a mathematical statement is true, following the rules of mathematics." yes, and?
• roywiggins 3y ago
  That definition (as interpreted by you) would appear to, at the very least, preemptively disqualify any proof by exhaustion ("it's true because we brute forced all the possibilities and didn't find any counterexamples"), which is a perfectly valid proof method. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_exhaustion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_exhaustion "All the steps are valid but it doesn't explain anything and I'm dissatisfied" is not an argument against a proof's validity. Sometimes the argument is just "A implies B implies C implies D implies E implies P, QED" and as long as you are convinced that each step is valid, you've got to take the proof itself as valid, even if the gestalt isn't satisfying.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]